Ah, blessed respite from the rigors of school. Out of the 76-odd hours that I've been home, I think I've slept away maybe 67 of those hours.

So, on my way home, I travel through the lovely state of Arkansas for quite a while, and then through hilly, pine tree covered east Texas. If you risk a stop at one of the various gas stations/convenience stores, and survive immersion in stale cigarrette smoke flavored air, you can meet some interesting people. Rural Texan and Arkansas are full of these diamonds in the rough, as I like to call them.

First and foremost, you have your "good 'ole boys", as my dad has dubbed the thousands of country men who are at all times wearing camoflage in some form or fashion. Favored mode of transportation for "good 'ole boys" is the big, Texas truck. Basically, it's just your regular testosterone boosting machine, plus some mud, camoflage of course, and maybe a gun rack. If you see a "good 'ole boy", and yell out "Billy Bob!" or "Hey Bud!", chances are, they'll turn around to see who's calling their name.

My personal favorite: those ladies behind the counter at the gas station. As I'm paying for my M&Ms and cherry coke, I usually get a raspy (that cigarette flavor has to come from somewhere) voice telling me thanks, sugar, and have a nice day. Or, when I was in Atlanta, Texas (apparently they got lazy and instead of coming up with their own name, jacked one from another city) Marlene at the Exxon station told me to "Have a hell of a day." I'm serious. And scared, all at the same time. I'm pretty sure that she meant it in a good way, but then again, she was wearing a Metallica T-shirt.

Oh the perks of traveling home!

I actually dreamed about conjugating Italian verbs. It's definitely exam time. But you wouldn't know it to look at me....

I've been sitting here at my computer, unconcernedly eating an extra large order of MacDonald's french fries and a large-ish coke. And the only reason I'm typing this entry is to procrastinate further. Because I most definitely do not have anything to say. Unless you want to know about Social Security reform, which is the topic of the paper I should be writing right now. Oh, wait! That's right. I don't really know anything about Social Security reform. Yes, now I remember: that's why my paper sucks.

However, I do have an update on the paranormal activity here at Rhodes College. Apparently Ralph Hatley, head of campus saftey and keg-party humbug extraordinaire, refuses to include McCoy Theater in his nightly campus rounds. Rumor has it that the old Zeta sorority chapter here pretty much died out (no pun intended), when a girl hung herself in the house. McCoy Theater is built where the house used to stand, and during one of his nightly walk-throughs, Ralph saw the ghost of the girl in the theater. So, Brittany Melvin and I are determined to pump Mr. Hatley for information, in an attempt to... be nosy?  I realize that I probably sound freakishly interested in ghosts and such. All I have to say is that it's the Fault of Miss Sarah Donachie, former roommate and compulsive watcher of any kind of paranormal/ghost TV show/special. And I'm not. Freakishly interested in ghosts.

I am... near delirium and should probably go to bed. Now.

I learned how to say "muggy" today in Italian. Professoressa Mutzi gleefully informed us that in the summer time, she goes around saying "C'e afra... c'e afra..." (it's muggy) at least ten times a day. Those Italians. Apparently, it's her favorite weather expression, or at least the one in most demand when you live in Memphis. Hell, I'd take some mugginess right now... it's coooooold.

I'm such a cold wimp, too. It's about 40 degrees outside, and I'm checking my nose for signs of frostbite after a five minute walk from the library to the dorm. I can remember being in Colorado on a ski trip and crying from the cold. I had gone with a random youth group that one of my friends belonged to, and I was along for the cheap transportation. The lift rides up the slope always get really cold, and I was taking a particularly long lift ride with a young gentlemen whose aquaintance I had just met. Needless to say, I was working the situation, impressing aforementioned young gentleman with tales of my skiing prowess and hardcore attitude. Which was working fairly well, until the tears started welling up in my eyes. It's pretty hard to appear hardcore if you're crying about being cold. I was so miserable, I couldn't even make up an excuse.... gasping, I informed him that "I think my hands are getting frostbite". (Notice common theme: I think frostbite is disgustingly gruesome and am therefore paranoid) I noticed with sinking heart his amazement... and.... disgust? Which, quite frankly, pissed me off. I was cold damn it, and I was gonna cry. And cry hard, you unfeeling bastard. Sooo, yeah. Cold's not my thing.

Geez guys. Sorry about the no posting. Apathy really is the anti-drug. So, Thanksgiving happened. At the annual day-after-Thanksgiving tag football game, I was my usual unathletic self. My only redeeming quality was that I had brought Cassie to the game this year, who kicked some serious flag football ass. Seriously, I think everyone was impressed that I actually even knew someone who is good at football/athleticism. I'm still a little embarrassed to admit it, but I was sore the next day. After all my running.... jogging slowly around the football field and catching..... getting hit with the football. Hey. I've never even once pretended to be athletic. Well, once, I went to the gym with my little sis, thinking that I could handle things like... working out. And, I got onto the elliptical machine for about five minutes and started to feel really funny. My heart started beating really fast and weird, and with a grey face and sweating palms I tryed to nonchalantly get off the machine and find a quiet corner in which to die. My sister must have noticed my distress and irregular gait, and so came to my rescue. I just remember sitting on a couch in the lobby, head between my knees, vowing never to excercise again. It was definitely a sign from God, this overwhelming desire to hurl, and nobody should argue with Divine Providence. So, basically, when anyone talks about working out or excercising... I just smile to myself and think about how lucky I am that God doesn't want me to excercise. Which makes me either spiritually superior, or blasphemous and lazy.

Be careful what you wish for. When I woke up Thursday, I could feel it coming on. My yearly attack of laryngitis. Which would have been a good thing, a blessed thing, given my impending performance in the Liederabend. However, the laryngitis isn't by any means full blown yet. I can only feel it's presense lurking deep withing the recesses of my throat. (ha. gross.) And, though I by no means sound my best, I can't cancel  performing, because the professor in charge isn't someone I know, plus I've behaved flakily on several occasions in regards to performing (which maybe is why the accompianist is not playing my song at the requested tempo). So, I decide, hell, I'm gonna do it.

After all, this is Liederabend-- the students here at Rhodes don't usually attend functions they can't pronounce. I figured, I'd be performing for a bunch of music majors/minors (who are critical, but not really people I hang around, so I can deal with their bad opinions) or possibly a few really enthusiastic German students.

So, I'm sitting in the auditorium, nursing my throat with a cup of hot water, when I find out who exactly attends Liederabends. Good looking boys who want to get extra credit in their required music courses, that's who. As I was craning my neck towards the entrance to the auditorium, it became increasingly clear that the audience in attendance had  been carefully selected to ensure the maximum possiblity of embarrasment for Meredith Allison. I definitely knew a loooot of these people, and a lot of these people were cute upperclassmen boys. Me and my cup of hot water were trying desperately to sink into my chair, into the ground, into the mouth of hell--wherever, when my friend Scott came and joined me.

"I have laryngitis!", I blurted out. Of coure, this wasn't necessarily the most gracious thing to do; if I were truly polite then I would have just performed without making pathetic excuses every five seconds. But being that polite isn't my forte, and god, it felt so good to tell someone-- to let someone know that I really didn't suck that badly.

"Wait, you're actually in this? You're singing tonight? Awesome!" No, Scott, not awesome, not awesome! Horribly mortifying and excrutiatingly embarassing, not awesome! Assured by Scott that I would do fine ( and what does he know?!!), I waited for my turn in an extremely pessimistic mood.

The performance. Ah, the performance. Well, my favorite part of my performance was actually when I got to sit down again--the rest I don't remember very well. Repressed memory, perhaps? I did not, as expected, give my very best performance of Widmung. But, as we were watching the rest of the performance, Scott leans over and whispers, "I liked your song a whole lot better than that girl who just went".

And suddenly, I felt a bajillion times better. Not because I was assured of the fact that at least I wasn't the worse performer (although, I'm not going to lie. the thought crossed my mind and I liked it). No, my friends, I'm much more deep and philosophical than that. Scott's comment made me laugh, most importantly at myself. Who was I kidding? Probably no one but me actually even gave a rat's ass about my performance, and as usual, I was making a mountain out of a molehill (ha. which is basically what my Xanga is here for, by the way. To make a mountain out of the molehill I call my life).

Seriously. Although my theory concerning the pronounceable qualities of an event and its subsequent attendance proved false, I'm almost completely sure that Rhodes students can't remember events that they can't pronouce. I'm counting on it. Becuase that laughing at myself shit only lasted so long. Geez.